Hogwarts is High, not the Author
by Thalia Kendall
Summary: A PARODY. In which Hogwarts is blatantly cloned into an American high school, Flitwick coaches basketball, Ron glowers in existential gloom, and Harry... tries to adapt to it all.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Before anyone flames me for the blatant American quality of this fic, let's make something clear. PARODY.  
  
See, there are lots of fics out there that make Hogwarts either the clone of an American high school... or roughly shove in American exchange students or alternatively turn Potterverse characters American... it's a cliche, and a damn plebey one at that.  
  
This fic is the parody of it. In which Hogwarts is actually made to be the typical American high school, and all the characters are stereotypical American students. Yes. I'm doing it on purpose. Do NOT flame me. Again, PARODY. AU.  
  
That said, hope you like!  
  
~~~  
  
It looked somewhat like any other school building. Stone walls, windows, the school's banner flying on the flagpole. There was a football field behind the school, along with bleachers in neat rows.  
  
It smelled like any other school building. The scent of Wrigley's spearmint not-quite-masking the scent of marijuana and tobacco as a few boys in ratty leather jackets passed by. The soft, moist scent of grimy Reeboks mixed with the sharp scent of leather girls' pumps. And of course, the vague, part-bland, part-burnt scent of cafeteria food.  
  
Harry Potter glanced uncertainly around the hallway, where a girl with purple hair (which, from the visible roots, used to be red) and a skateboard tucked under her tattooed arm, conversed with a preppy, fidgeting kid with a camera. "No, Colin... I'm not going to chem today. It's Monday. Snape's not going to notice if his hair's on fire or not.... hey, what're YOU staring at?" the girl suddenly snapped at Harry, her blue eyeliner-encircled eyes narrowing venomously at him.  
  
"Er, nothing," Harry turned, and with that wonderfully-assured strut of new students, tripped down the hallway and fled around a corner.  
  
He had not gone three steps when he was overtaken by a bossy-looking girl with brown, bushy hair, in designer khakis and an almost professional-looking white blouse. "Here you are, Harry Potter, is it?" she started, her voice rather fast and direct, used to getting what she wanted, "I'm Hermione Granger, student council president and government representative for your class. I'm showing you around today. Come on."  
  
"Er... right." Harry made a mental note that Hogwarts High might not be as pleasant as most high schools. There hadn't been any sign of normal, good-looking, non-scary girls... yet.  
  
"This," Hermione pointed one hand (and one very sharp pencil) at an open door. "This is your chemistry classroom. You won't be going here quite yet. We have to take you to the office and finish a bit of paperwork first... but that fellow in there with the black hair in the ponytail is Mr. Snape. He's the chem teacher. He's a bit... odd, but I don't think he's dispensed pot to the burnouts... yet." Hermione's voice was filled with thinly-veiled disapproval. "He knows enough about the subject though."  
  
Harry wasn't quite sure he wanted to know HOW Snape knew about 'the subject', and so kept silent as Hermione dragged him down another hallway... and suddenly came to an abrupt stop.  
  
And screeched, stamping her foot.  
  
"OH GODDAMMIT FRIGGIN'..." Hermione seemed to realize that she had a rather frightened and bemused new student with her, and paused, eyes blazing.  
  
"Er... what's the matter?" Harry ventured timidly, green eyes rather wide behind his glasses.   
  
Hermione gave him a look as if questioning his intelligence, and pointed the pencil-bearing hand dramatically at one of the doors. On the formerly blank gray surface, rather artfully depicted, was a scene in which a blond figure with poms fell on his or her ass on the green grass of a football field.  
  
"I. HATE. THOSE. THREE." Hermione's face was practically deadly in its malevolence, and Harry drew back slightly. "They think they're damned ARTISTS or something..."  
  
"Er... who?" He was really saying 'Er' a bit too much. Should cut down on that.  
  
"No one," Hermione's voice was clipped, although she'd once again pasted a chipper smile on her face, showing all her white teeth. "Graffiti on school property is against the rules, just so you know," she informed him primly.  
  
"Gotcha," Harry muttered. She smiled and grabbed his arm none-too-gently once more.  
  
"All right. Let's keep going. I have to be in World Lit in ten minutes."  
  
They went up one hallway, down another, and came to an abrupt stop at an office. "Come on, in here. Principal Dumbledore will probably want to meet you, and then you can get your schedule from Mr. Lupin, the guidance counselor."  
  
Principal Dumbledore turned out to be a cheerful-looking elderly gentleman, whose office had a very grandmother-esque oak rocking chair with purple cushions and a bright red parrot gaily swinging about in a large cage. "Welcome to Hogwarts High, young Mr. Potter. I'm Albus Dumbledore."  
  
"Nice to meet you, sir," Harry should the man's hand, and was immediately offered a caffeinated peppermint.  
  
Before he could speak more to the principal, Hermione, whose body-clock seemed to be set permanently at 'accelerated', tugged on his arm and, with a hurried farewell to the principal, took him to the guidance counselor's office.  
  
The parrot bobbed its head as he stumbled out the door. "Fawkes says a merry day, and a long detention to ye!"  
  
Harry, ten minutes later, learnt that he would be reporting to a Ms. McGonagall's homeroom at the end of the day, along with Hermione, and made his way towards history class, with a Dr. Binns.  
  
And as he slid into the seat next to a pretty Indian girl with hair in a braid, who was doodling in a star-shaped notepad with a bright red gel pen, he listened to Dr. Binns lecture on Medieval Europe... and sighed in relief.  
  
Well. History class would still be boring as all hell. Maybe with this bit of normalcy, Hogwarts wouldn't be so bad. 


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Sorry this took so long in coming, everyone! There was the chaos of moving into a new apartment, and starting a new term in school, etc. etc. etc. And then there's the fact that I have very very limited internet time from now on. Let's just say that cable costs too friggin' much for stingy ickle me... and Graduate level English courses (yes, in the plural) might just reduce me to a babbling bit of Anglo-Saxon spouting disjointed thesis statements. Yes. But parodyficcying shall still ensue, whenever I can! I promise!  
  
Disclaimer: Figure it out.  
  
~*~  
  
Harry survived History class admirably... or, that is to say, he fell asleep just like almost everyone else, and was duly awakened by the clanging of the school bell.  
  
No one, not even Dr. Binns, seemed to find any of this very wrong. But then again, Binns was rather too preoccupied with how to maximize the phlegmatic tonality of his voice to notice much else.  
  
As soon as he'd walked out of Dr. Binns' classroom, Hermione appeared once again next to him, like magic. "You're going to Biology next," she informed him decidedly. "With Mr. Hagrid."  
  
The pretty Indian girl he'd sat next to gave him a look of pity. Harry bit his lip.  
  
"So, er... tell me about Mr. Hagrid."  
  
"Oh, he's a big guy with a beard, and he knows a lot about animals of all sorts," Hermione started, at the same time that the Indian girl sighed.  
  
"He's anal-retentive about practical work. NEVER make a mistake in one of his labs, or he will grind your bones to make his bread."  
  
"PARVATI!" Hermione's voice was oozing disapproval like a didactic pimple of propriety. "Hagrid means well. Don't scare poor Harry here into thinking that our school is weird!"  
  
If Harry had the courage to say so, he would have informed the bossy student council girl that the former had already been duly accomplished. But Harry kept silent and wide-eyed, and allowed Hermione (and the Parvati girl) to lead him to the fascinating world that was Mr. Hagrid's classroom.  
  
~*~  
  
Mr. Hagrid turned out to be, indeed, quite the 'anal-retentive' teacher. Harry's first lecture happened to be on animal classification, and it was quite evident almost immediately, in the eloquence with which Mr. Hagrid extolled the perfection of the Porifera and the arete of the Annelids that he expected his class to share his reverence for living creatures.  
  
Harry found himself seated next to a boy who, strangely, resembled the purple-haired girl he'd seen earlier in the morning. This boy was rather tall and skinny, with what had to be red hair, streaked with black. He also wore stark black, with a heavy Gothic cross around his neck and a Celtic-looking tattoo on one freckled bicep. A ratty black leather trench coat (despite the warm weather outside) hung on the back of the guy's chair.   
  
"So," Mr. Hagrid sternly surveyed the class, his voice muffled slightly by his luxuriant beard, "Who c'n tell me the phylum in which Drosophila melanogaster belongs?"  
  
Goth boy raised a hand. "Arthropoda," he grunted when Hagrid nodded in his direction.  
  
Under the tangled mess of whiskers, the teacher grinned, even as a blond boy, all American Eagle and Ralph Lauren and boy band prep, sniffed and rolled his eyes in a 'I could SO be cutting class and hitting on the poms squad rather than suffering this ignoble inaneness!' manner.  
  
Mr. Hagrid seemed to expand with irritation. Beady eyes narrowed over the ponderous beard, focusing on the blond boy. "Malfoy," he rumbled like an ominous volcano, "Ya don't want to be assigned lab-cleaning duties, do ya?"  
  
The blond shrank back, a clear look of horror and revulsion on his face. Goth boy gave a slight snort.   
  
Mr. Hagrid, now with an apparently terrifying threat out in the open, blithely continued lecturing until the end of the class.  
  
"Now read your books, you lot," he admonished, as the students started to leave, blond boy Malfoy practically high-tailing it out of the class as fast as his shiny Bruno Magli loafers could carry him.  
  
Before Harry could glance at what was next on his schedule, Hermione, nice, forward-thinking young woman that she was, had plucked it out of his hands. "You've got lunch next. Let's go."  
  
Well then... if this was the way it would be, he should probably consider investing in a good leash and collar. 


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Now, for the fun lunch scene! Punks and preps don't mix, as we know very well. Oh yes... and we see a few more characters. Ehh... just read it.  
  
Disclaimer: Whoever believes that I am brilliant enough to own the HP world, I'll thank them before killing them for their stupidity.  
  
~*~  
  
Hermione, her hand clamped around Harry's arm, pulled him down the hallway towards the cafeteria. There were more students here... gathered in groups and clusters about the hallway. As they went along, Hermione inclined her head towards various groups of people, generally with a toothy smile, and whispered to Harry their names and characteristics.  
  
"That's Emma Dobbs and Seamus Finnigan over there," Hermione indicated a couple standing by a drinking fountain. The boy Harry vaguely recalled as from his History class, with sandy blond hair falling in his eyes. He had his arms around a girl in a green dress, with brown hair flowing down her back. They were doing quite the impression of 'sickeningly cute couple' without even making out in public. Harry had to admire their skill.  
  
"She's younger than we are," Hermione whispered, "Don't know where Seamus met her, but they've been surgically attached at the tonsils for months."  
  
It was indeed a lovely bit of information to be presented, right before lunch at a new place.  
  
Hermione continued on, past the cuddling couple, and stopped dead in the hallway, her eyes starting a slow burn.  
  
Harry didn't see anything particularly gruesome down the hall. There was a fellow with dark, slightly wavy hair in torn jeans and a muscle shirt, an intricate tattoo of barbed-wire tracery and thorny roses encircling one forearm. Sure, he was smirking at the wall, but he didn't look particularly dangerous. Why Hermione was trying to kill him with her venomous glare was just another of the myriad mysteries of the place.  
  
"Terence Higgs!" Hermione evidently decided that non-verbal aggression would not suffice, and barked out a name. The guy with the tattoo turned slowly, and raised his eyebrows.   
  
"Yes?" His voice was smooth, almost oily, like that of someone used to charming people to get his way.  
  
"On Mrs. Pince's door! WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THAT?!" Hermione the angry avenging goddess now advanced towards the seemingly-unconcerned Terence Higgs, her face ablaze with righteous indignation.  
  
"What's the matter with Mrs. Pince's door?" Terence's eyes were as wide as a lapdog's, and almost as innocent.   
  
"THE GRAFFITI! THE CHEERLEADER!" Hermione apparently decided that getting to the point in this situation was the best way of going about it.  
  
Terence gave a mock-gasp of horror, even as his eyes glinted, "I am completely unresponsible for THAT piece of distasteful wall colouration, thank you very much!"  
  
"Oh, don't LIE to me, Terence Higgs," Hermione was quite close to poking the boy in the chest now, and Harry wondered if he could pry his wrist from her grasp and sneak away.  
  
"Dude, I'm NOT!" Terence argued, "You might have noticed the distinct lack of aesthetic feminine pulchritude in that picture!"  
  
"Lack of your soft porn aside," Hermione hissed, "Do NOT spray-paint around this school any more. And same for Warrington and Montague, once I get my hands on them..."  
  
"I'll let them know that you want to touch them, babe." Terence smirked again, "Have fun corrupting that kid with you, Granger." And with that, he departed, leaving a fuming Hermione and a half-confused, half-terrified Harry standing in the hallway.  
  
Finally, they made it to the door of the lunchroom, which was packed with students and smelled of very greasy fries and pizza. Hermione pointed at the very long lunch line. "Well? Go on, then. I have a meeting with Principal Dumbledore, but I'll be back to take you to your next class after you eat."  
  
Harry dug a few crumpled dollar bills out of his backpack, and shuffled into line. He found himself standing right behind the Goth boy from his biology class, who nodded a curt greeting as he adjusted one of his earrings.  
  
"Weasley, PLEASE tell me you're not trying to grow dreadlocks!" Another male voice, snooty, sounded behind Harry. Harry turned around to see a head of blond hair. Ah... yes, preppy boy. "Both of you are from my biology class," he blurted out.   
  
The preppy boy gave him a cool, appraising look. "Why, yes. I..." the pronoun was spoken with great gravity, "am Draco Malfoy. And you are..?"  
  
"Harry Potter. Who are you?" Harry looked at the Goth boy.  
  
"Ron Weasley," came the response. "Welcome to the fiery depths of generic educational hell."  
  
"Ignore Weasley," Draco interrupted, "He's quite the loser. If you're new here, I can show you the ropes... if you will. I can guarantee your social status, too."  
  
"Only YOU would be concerned with such transitory, puerile things such as social class... when there is actually no class, and everything is a lie. What does that MATTER, anyway?"  
  
"Oh, I suppose that social class doesn't matter to those who have none," Draco sniffed. "And you really should get rid of that NASTY dye job in your hair."  
  
Despite his conviction that Ron the Goth boy was a few swords short of a weaponry rack, Draco's snooty attitude rather irked Harry. Perhaps some of that sentiment showed in his face, for when Draco repeated his offer, he raised his eyebrows in a slightly challenging manner.  
  
"It's all right," Harry replied coolly, "I'll deal."  
  
The blond boy's face took on a miffed sort of expression, and he pointedly looked away from both Harry and Ron until Harry had paid for his food and left to find a table.  
  
He sat down at the end of a table where the scary purple-haired girl from that morning, along with the smiling camera boy Colin, and Ron were all sitting. Ron gave another grunt and nod in acknowledgement, Colin smiled (although he seemed to he the type to smile at everyone) and the scary purple-haired girl ignored him altogether.  
  
It was a very silent meal.  
  
Pizza grease was fascinating.   
  
Really.  
  
~*~  
  
Harry was just throwing his styrofoam tray into the trash, when purple-hair, pulling a skateboard out from underneath a sticker-emblazoned binder, bumped into Draco Malfoy at the lunchroom door.  
  
Malfoy gave HER a long look, as he appeared to habitually do. But unlike with Harry, he sneered outright with the girl. "You know, Virginia, you could almost pass for appealing if you did something with yourself. I mean, vintage is one thing, but those jeans you're wearing would be rejected by Goodwill as being too foul."  
  
"Malfoy," the girl's voice was calm, but Harry noticed that the hand on the skateboard had tightened. "If one day I feel the burning need to look like a rock video ho, I'll be sure to ask your master opinion. Until then, shut up."  
  
"ROCK video? PLEASE... I've TASTE..." Malfoy looked positively insulted. "I know you can't afford good designers, but if you sell your brother for primate research, maybe you can get a couple of decent pieces from Abercrombie and Fitch."  
  
The skateboard had come in contact sharply with Malfoy's head, even as the girl kicked him with one combat boot in the knee. The blond boy doubled over in pain, and the girl shoved past him down the hallway, muttering about pretty boy jerks, her face flushed.  
  
"...A'ercrom'ie an' BITCH..." A groan from the ground.  
  
"Good going, sis," Goth boy Ron Weasley grunted at the girl as she passed. She stopped and glared at him in turn.  
  
"Don't call me 'sis'. Tell mom I'm not coming home for dinner." And the girl Virginia disappeared out a side door.  
  
Ah... heartwarming domestic scenes. Harry smiled behind the copy of the school map he held.  
  
He was feeling slightly more at ease when Hermione, stalking over as he bit into his last fry, told him in no uncertain tones that he had to follow her to English with Dr. Flitwick.  
  
"He's also the basketball coach, if you're at all interested in trying out," Hermione told him. "Our varsity team nearly made it to state last year. But Wood, Flint and Chuck Weasley have all graduated... there are a few openings..."  
  
They reached a door where there was a sign reading "Dr. F. Flitwick, English", and Hermione pulled it open. Harry peered inside, and stared.  
  
He hadn't expected this celebrated basketball coach to be only about four and a half feet tall. 


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: English class with the ebullient Dr. Flitwick, and then... Humanities, in which several more characters are introduced! Ending with homeroom with Ms. McGonagall, this chapter concludes Harry's first school day. Thanks to those who have reviewed so far! (And yes, Lav Brown's NY accent, the fact that she's starring in ALICE in Wonderland, is not random *smirk*)  
  
Disclaimer: I own neither Potterverse characters nor Beatrice nor Benedick. See, not being English, I can't possibly be either JKR or Shakespeare. Big duh-ism.  
  
~*~  
  
"Welcome to another magnificent day of English Literature!" Dr. Flitwick had a very squeaky voice when he was excited, and his face, crowned with snowy hair, was all smiles as he craned his neck to look at all the students. "It shall be my pleasure and honour to bring you through the marvels of Milton and the bravura of the Brontes! And..." Flitwick paused, glancing at his class list, "It seems as though we have with us a new student! Another addition to this grand group of scholars! Mr. Potter, is it?"  
  
Harry squirmed slightly and nodded, "Er, yes."  
  
"Wonderful!" Flitwick beamed at him, and pointed towards a chair next to a bored-looking girl with dark hair. "Next to Miss Turpin, if you please!"  
  
Harry slid into his assigned seat, and without further ado, the teacher launched into the day's topic. "And how many of you have done the assigned reading for today?"  
  
The majority gave various grunts and nods of affirmation, and Flitwick beamed, clapping his hands. "Splendid! And who, then, shall volunteer to play the parts that we'd not gotten to yesterday?"  
  
Now, most students arranged to be looking into their bookbags or at their fingernails. But one boy, his medium blond hair brushing his shoulders and a pair of gilt-framed glasses perched on his nose, raised a hand.  
  
"Ah, Steven Cornfoot!" Flitwick's grin widened to Halloween pumpkin proportions, "Excellent of you to volunteer! Miss Brocklehurst, if you would play opposite him?"  
  
A girl with black hair and slightly tanned skin gave a noncommittal shrug, and opened her book. Steven Cornfoot set his own, closed, upon his desk, and gave the girl a charming grin.  
  
"What, my dear Lady Disdain, are you yet living?"  
  
Brocklehurst rolled her eyes slightly at Cornfoot's slightly impudent expression, and read her own lines. "Is it possible disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you come in her presence."  
  
"Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none." Steven Cornfoot continued glibly, rising from his desk and giving Brocklehurst a debonair sort of look. Harry assumed that it was part of the role he was playing, which he evidently knew by heart.  
  
"A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me." Brocklehurst gave Cornfoot a veiled glare, and continued to read in a snippy voice. The girl next to Harry gave a slight snort of amusement.  
  
As Cornfoot and Brocklehurst continued their Benedick-and-Beatrice banter, Turpin turned towards Harry with a slight smirk. "Think Mandy and Steven should just stop and kiss already?"  
  
Harry did not venture any opinions on this... In his old school, no students used Shakespeare as a means of flirting. At least, no one beyond a particularly pedantic kid named Dudley who sent a girl the ever-clichéd and ever-overused "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day" sonnet. That particular painful-to-behold event had served as a warning to others to avoid using the Bard as a means of wooing.  
  
And yet, as Mandy Brocklehurst, a haughty expression on her face, concluded the exchange with "You always end with a jade's trick: I know you of old," and pointedly ignored the brilliant, wide grin that Steven Cornfoot beamed her way (though she flushed slightly), Harry reflected that perhaps Turpin, whatever her first name was, had a point.  
  
Not that he'd want to see the two making out in class right after lunch or anything!  
  
~*~  
  
After English class, in which Steven Cornfoot, evidently a bit of a literature whiz, dominated both recitations and discussions with his wit and wisdom, Harry was met once again by the door by Hermione Granger, who was looking more benevolent and upbeat than she'd been all day. A glance at the stack of books and binders she held in her hands gave the reason why. On top of "Pre-Calculus Topics: 3rd Edition" was a rather difficult-looking test, with a cheerful red-pen "53/50" marked by Hermione's neatly printed name.   
  
"So, how has your day been, so far?" Hermione asked breezily as she led him (not death-gripping his arm this time, to his immense relief) down the hallway towards Humanities. "Enjoy your classes?"  
  
"They're all right," Harry replied, wondering why Hermione, who was apparently in the same year as he was, took Pre-Calculus rather than the standard Geometry. "There's a kid named Steven Cornfoot in Flitwick's class who's apparently quite the English geek."  
  
Hermione laughed lightly, "Steven is a sweet boy. He plans to major in English, I think... and he's going to Stanford." At the mention of that college, her expression brightened even more.  
  
"Oh?" Harry gave a look of polite interest, "And what about you?"  
  
"I think I'm going to Stanford as well," she replied, her expression now downright dreamy, "Although I think I'm going into Business. I love math, you see... and I remember last year, as a freshman, I took accelerated geometry and Percy tutored me and..." she trailed off, recalling herself. "Well. Yes. Percy was the student council president in his year... he's graduated now, though, but he did very well, 1800 SATs and everything... he's also at Stanford."  
  
So Miss Prim-and-Professional apparently had hormones after all. Harry made a mental note that this Percy individual must be a force to be reckoned with.   
  
Hermione left him at the classroom of a Ms. C. Sinistra, and floated down the hallway in a state of equation-induced euphoria.   
  
~*~  
  
Humanities, unlike most of his other classes, was an elective open to students of all years, and could be used to fulfill a liberal arts enrichment requirement for graduation. Therefore, when Harry walked into the quiet, dreamy Ms. Sinistra's classroom, he was greeted by a far more diverse crowd than that in any of his other classes.  
  
Perched on the top of a desk in the corner, a smirk on his face, was the Terence Higgs fellow that Hermione had spazzed at earlier in the day. He was talking in low tones to a girl in a red vintage blouse and a long white fringed skirt, her brown hair cut to an inch below her chin. Though it was quite apparent that Terence was flirting, the girl's response was harder to gauge, although she WAS turned somewhat away from Harry. Close by sat two other boys, attired similar to Terence. The more cynical-looking of the two seemed busy sketching or writing, the fluorescent light from the ceiling glinting off the silver hoop in one ear, while the other appeared to be leafing through the textbook.   
  
Harry introduced himself to Ms. Sinistra, who gave him a vague smile and waved him to a seat towards the middle of the room, right next to a blonde girl in a flowing blue babydoll dress, thumbing through a copy of the script of "Alice In Wonderland".  
  
She looked up with through mascara-drenched eyelashes at him, and daintily introduced herself as Lavender Brown. "And what might your name be?" Her voice had a slight accent, as if she'd come from New York City.  
  
"I'm Harry," he replied, peering at her flawlessly manicured hand before giving it a slight shake. "I'm new."  
  
"Well yes, I know ithat/i," she grinned slightly, "I've never seen you before."  
  
A few more students trickled in, a boy with longish dark hair and a guitar case sitting down behind Harry. As the bell rang and the last student, the camera-carrying Colin that Harry had seen earlier, rushed in, Ms. Sinistra started to take attendance.  
  
From Lavender Brown, to the boy with the guitar (Roger Davies), through Terence Higgs and his friends (the Warrington and Montague that Hermione had most ominously threatened to 'get her hands on' earlier), to the girl Terence had been flirting with (by the name of Alicia Spinnet)... Sinistra slowly went through the list, and added Harry to the end of it.   
  
Harry, glancing from Lavender's drama script to Davies' guitar to to Colin's camera to Alicia's sketchbook, received a firm impression that he might be one of the few not-particularly-artsy students in the class.   
  
He meekly buried himself in his textbook and listened to Sinistra's whispery lecturing about Hellenistic Greek sculpture.  
  
~*~  
  
As Harry put away his rambly notes from Humanities class, he saw the now-familiar head of voluminous brown hair at the door of Sinistra's classroom. Hermione, still in her good mood, smiled at him in greeting. "Now, to homeroom."  
  
"Is he with us, then?" Lavender Brown's voice was elegant, if rather disinterested, as she gazed from Harry to Hermione.   
  
"Yes, he is," Hermione answered for Harry, before turning away from the other girl to look at Harry. "I see you've made the acquaintance of Lavender, then." Hermione didn't seem to be particularly close to Lavender, though there wasn't any great antagonism. "She's starring in the next play that the drama department is putting on."  
  
Lavender patted her blonde ringlets and flushed, more with pride than with embarrassment. Harry politely congratulated her, not knowing what else to say. Although, to be sure, Lavender didn't seem to expect much in the way of conversation from him.  
  
Hermione led him along the hallway, back towards the science wing that he'd been in for Biology earlier that day. "McGonagall teaches Physics," she informed him, "I have class with her when you have Humanities."  
  
"A few of the boys have crushes on her," Lavender continued for Hermione, wrinkling her delicate little nose. "She's OLD..."  
  
Hermione gave Lavender a slightly reproachful look, as if to say that McGonagall wasn't that old, and certainly not to be disparaged, and led Harry through the door of 'Ms. M. McGonagall'.  
  
Ms. McGonagall turned out to be a thin woman with dark hair and piercing green eyes, whose age seemed ambiguous, for certainly although she wasn't VERY young, she was energetic and had a firm voice. She gave Harry a slight smile, marked him up in her records book, and told him to sit anywhere he liked.  
  
Harry sat down next to Hermione, and Parvati from his History class walked in a short while after him, to sit down at his other side. Goth boy Ron Weasley, who was apparently also in his home room, gave Harry a slight smirk that was quite the opposite of his usual lugubrious expression.  
  
"Popular with the ladies, eh?"  
  
Hermione rolled her eyes and muttered something about silly boys under her breath, and Parvati giggled slightly. Lavender sat next to Ron and patronizingly (if slightly gingerly) patted his head, telling him that if he behaved in a reasonably courteous manner and remembered to wash behind his ears, he might be able to get more action.  
  
The shade of Ron's maroon face clashed terribly with his attire, his two-toned locks, AND his freckles.. and Harry's school day ended, somewhat surprisingly, with laughter. 


	5. Chapter 5

More parodyfic! Hope that it is being liked so far... Harry, computer class, a few more Ravenclaws, and other insanity.   
  
Disclaimer: Canon borrowing is a less serious crime than canon rape. Why don't people go and sue the terrible Mary Sue writers instead?  
  
~*~  
  
Harry went to Hogwarts the next day with several reflections in mind.  
  
Firstly, that Hermione Granger and graffiti did not mix. Like a burning cigarette and a stick of dynamite, the two, when in close proximity with each other, caused for a great deal of potential damage to innocent bystanders.  
  
Secondly, to appease this furious Hermione-beast, one had to mention mathematics and Percy Weasley.  
  
Third of all, Ginny Weasley and Draco Malfoy, when entangled in a row, were to be left strictly alone. It was a spectator sport.  
  
Among various other things that actually had to do with academics.  
  
Walking into general computer literacy class first thing that morning, he greeted the rather nerdy-looking Ms. Moore, who told him to take any computer he liked except the life-support-system-looking ones with the LINUX and the various "break it and you shall start selling your plasma to pay for it" attachments.   
  
A few familiar faces in this class. The Emma Dobbs that Hermione had pointed out was sitting at a computer in the next row, playing solitaire. There was the same Warrington fellow he'd remembered seeing in his Humanities class, a few seats down.   
  
Two students, a boy and a girl, came in together, laughing over something or another. The girl, Oriental and petite, had a few highlights in her raven hair, cut to chin-length. The boy had a cowlick, and wore a shirt proclaiming his adoration for caffeine. They greeted Ms. Moore rather familiarly, and went ahead to the life-support-system-looking computers, the girl indulging in a quick exchange of sneers with Warrington en route.  
  
Ms. Moore took attendance, and Harry learnt that the two, a Su Li and a Kevin Entwhistle, were the class aids, both of them pretty much computer geeks, and that they didn't have much to do in this class period except to play games, snark back and forth, and, on occasion if necessary, help the other students.  
  
Their assignment of the day, more or less to make a rudimentary spreadsheet to demonstrate their ability to learn to use the program involved, was fairly uncomplicated, much to Harry's relief. For, as class was going on, Li and Entwhistle became embroiled in a fierce battle of Warcraft III.  
  
"YOU ARE BEYOND REDEMPTION!"  
  
Every few seconds, that phrase would emit from Entwhistle, and finally, Su Li, smirking slightly, turned towards Kevin with a mock-reproachful look on her face.   
  
"Kevin," she started, her voice tremulous and sweet, "You SHOULDN'T... it's scaring all the impressionable, as-of-yet-uncorrupted children!"  
  
Warrington, apparently finished with his task and bored, turned towards the Chinese girl with a smirk. "It's rather rich of you to call others uncorrupted children, Li."  
  
Li glared at him, muttered some choice words about swarthy gits and went back to assassinating Kevin's orcs.  
  
~*~  
  
When Chemistry class rolled around, Harry had added 'Li + Warrington = kerosene + match' to the list of things to remember, after the short girl had tried to step around the rather taller boy at the end of class, which had culminated in her trying to shove him, him catching her arms before she could push him off balance, and remarking that sexual advances were best conducted in a place with more privacy than the hallway.   
  
He walked to Chemistry class, managing to step in just before the bell rang, and slid into a seat next to Parvati.  
  
"Snape's always on a bad trip on Tuesdays," Parvati whispered to him in warning out of the corner of her mouth, "Don't piss him off... and if you have to, wait til the end of class."  
  
Harry nodded solemnly at this helpful advice, and watched as Mr. Snape stalked in, indeed seeming to be in a bad mood. Taking attendance in grunts and growls, he curtly told the students to start the acid-dilution lab on page 15 of their lab manuals.  
  
Harry, who had been assigned to partner with the intelligent and capable Hermione, managed to escape mishap, but Ron's partner, a boy with a slide rule hanging out of his back pocket, wasn't so lucky. Splashing the corrosive and concentrated HCl onto his sleeve by accident (resulting in a hissing sound and a hole), he whimpered as Snape approached, peered into his face, and muttered something about idiotic students and lab mishaps before telling Ron to clean up the area.  
  
"Neville's rather clumsy," Hermione said softly as she carefully measured out distilled water in a graduated cylinder. "He's good at other things, but Chemistry isn't his forte."  
  
Harry nodded, avoided looking at Snape's peace sign tie, and doggedly continued to work on the lab. 


End file.
